Cleaning Gadgets You Probably Don't Need
In this edition of Clean Everything, we share our experience testing the world's most expensive robot vacuum cleaner. Plus: a viral scrubber you don't need, how to make your Swiffer less wasteful, and a robot vacuum we do like.
Every so often on the cleaning beat, we come across an overengineered, overhyped gadget that claims it will solve all of your cleaning woes — even offering to take over your chores entirely. And though some robots can be extremely useful (more on that below), we've found when a cleaning gizmo seems like it's too good to be true, it probably is.
Take, for example, this $1,400 robot vacuum. Its features list is a mile long: AI obstacle detection, a self-emptying dirt bin, a self-washing and self-drying mop, a tiny robot arm that reaches into corners to sweep up the last bits of dust, and on and on. And, sure, in our month of testing it, we've found that it's pretty good. Yet it's far from perfect, and it's still susceptible to the same limitations that robot cleaners have struggled with for decades.
'Counting on it to be a perfect robot servant, or to engineer the drudgery of cleaning out of your life, is just setting yourself up for disappointment,' said senior staff writer Liam McCabe.
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New York Times
20-05-2025
- New York Times
This Robot Vacuum Has a Claw That Tries (and Mostly Fails) to Pick Up Your Socks
The Saros Z70 mostly works like any other robot vacuum-mop combo, sucking up debris and wiping up light grime. But the main attraction is the OmniGrip arm, which promises to grab and sort the type of clutter that robot cleaners, until this point, haven't been able to tidy up on their own. The arm spends most of its time tucked inside the robot, behind a hatch. It's programmed to recognize socks, slippers, small towels, and tissues (that's all, for now), extend the claw, pick up the items, and then drop them off in designated areas. Socks, towels, and tissues go into a cardboard bucket that comes with the robot, and slippers go to another floor-level spot of your choice. Setup took me about 10 minutes. You need to start by sending the robot out on a training run to draw a map of your home's floor plan, a process that's quick and mostly automatic. Then you coach it, through the smartphone app, so that it knows where you've put the sock bin and where you want the slippers to go. Depending on which settings you have enabled, either it'll sort your things as it finds them or you can set it to finish cleaning first and then go on a separate sorting-only run. If it comes across other obstacles, it'll just steer around them. It also has a remote-control mode that lets you peer through the bot's camera, drive up to obstacles, and then tell the claw to do its thing. The claw isn't exactly a piece of heavy-duty precision machinery, but it doesn't strike me as flimsy, either. When it pops out of its hatch, tiny motors whirring, sometimes I stop to marvel at how far robot vacuums have come. Other times it strikes me as cartoonish and over-the-top, and occasionally I shudder, as though I'm gazing upon a techno-dystopian torture device from an H.R. Giger painting. My dog hates it. The Saros Z70 clamps down on socks, tissues, and slippers with a crablike pincer grip and then carries the item to a designated sorting area. Liam McCabe/NYT Wirecutter Down to business: The claw doesn't collect stuff as reliably as advertised. I gave it a few chances to pick up a normal mess that my dog and my 7-year-old leave out on any given day, but it grabbed only about a quarter of the items. If a sock was anywhere near a piece of furniture — as it often is when you live with a first-grader who reflexively tears off their footwear as soon as they plop down on the couch — the Z70 wouldn't even attempt to pick it up. It's probably a good thing that the robot is smart enough not to snap off its own appendage while driving under a coffee table. But even when I carefully staged a bunch of socks and slippers that didn't seem like they would cause the Z70 any obvious problems, it still worked only about half as often as I thought it should. It didn't accurately identify every piece of detritus, even from its approved-item list. One of my black socks blended in with my navy blue rug, and the Z70 couldn't spot the sock. A Roborock representative told us that the vision system struggles to spot objects on dark carpets in general. The vision system later mistook that same sock for a dog turd, even though it was on a bare wood floor that time. It didn't register my slippers at all. The AI vision system on the Saros Z70 sometimes misidentifies objects, like when it thought my black ankle sock was dog poop (left). You need to spend at least a few minutes coaching the robot through the rich but busy smartphone app (center) to take advantage of all the features. Most of the time, it offers tips along the way (right). Liam McCabe/NYT Wirecutter Then again, it did pick up a Birkenstock sandal, which I guess it had pegged as a slipper (it must be hard to train AI on those subtle differences). It's a positive sign that the arm is strong enough to handle that much weight, and I was impressed when the bot set the sandal down exactly where I had coached it to. The other half of the Birkenstock pair wasn't so lucky, though; it sat sole-side up on the floor, and the Z70 stared at it for a second and then left without attempting to lift it. Sometimes, when the Z70 did identify a sock correctly, the arm just couldn't quite grab it. Considering the slew of cameras and sensors built into the arm and the main chassis, you'd think it would find the right angle, but it's not there yet. The Z70 was also way too conservative around furniture and fixtures for my tastes. It wouldn't even try to pick up socks that were within a foot of my TV stand or toilet, and it balked at grabbing a sock under my dining room table, where there's ample height for the arm to do its thing. Then there are other obstacles that it should have steered clear of but didn't. It promptly tried to pick up a sock next to my dog's wire playpen — and ended up hooking itself to one of the crossbars and not letting go until the front of the bot had risen a few inches off the floor. Occasionally, it just looked lost, twitching in place with its claw hanging out, calling out 'sorting items, sorting items' over and over for about a minute at inconsistent intervals, before retracting its arm and moving on. Here's the claw cavity inside the Saros Z70. It doesn't feel like cheap machinery, though it's not exactly heavy-duty, either. Liam McCabe/NYT Wirecutter I tested it for about three weeks. It remains to be seen whether the claw will hold up over time, what with all its moving parts and all the crevices where dust and grit can gather. My sense is that these robots are not easy to repair. When I've spoken to Roborock representatives about the durability and repairability of the company's products in the past, they've told me that it doesn't plan to offer major replacement parts because it expects customers to upgrade every three years or so anyway. The Z70's arm is very much a work in progress, and Roborock has a big challenge on its hands. Getting the arm tuned correctly, across all the image recognition, mechanical engineering, and choices about risk management and bot behavior, will be quite a feat of engineering. And the solution probably won't come to this first-generation model: In an email, a representative from Roborock said that the company probably won't be able to solve some of the pickup and image-recognition problems with software updates alone. For now, it falls well short of being Roborock's promised panacea for all your floor-level messes. You shouldn't count on Roborock (or any company) to catch up with its promises through software updates over time. It might — but I've seen too many examples of gadget makers not delivering on their promised improvements to navigation systems and other features.
New York Times
05-05-2025
- New York Times
How Hard Is It to Install an EV Charger?
If there's one thing that's most likely to cause a hiccup in a typical charger installation, it's your home's electrical system. One national contractor told me that about 20% of their installations run into electrical complications. Will Shippee, a director at Schneider Electric, said that homes built before the 1970s are the most likely candidates. (Disclosure: The author was previously employed by a subsidiary of Schneider Electric and worked with Shippee on one project.) Here's the issue: Your home gets a limited amount of power from the grid, measured in amperes (amps for short). Older homes, especially if they heat with fossil fuel, may have only 100 amps coming in from the street, and maybe less. Want to know how many amps of electricity your home has to work with? Look for the breaker switch that's set away from the others in your panel — the number tells you what you're working with. In my home, I have 200 amps, which is pretty typical these days, though older homes often have less. Liam McCabe/NYT Wirecutter That's plenty of capacity for lights, gadgets, and a typical suite of major appliances. But things start getting tight once you add modern, high-draw items. A typical Level 2 charger needs 50 or 60 amps alone. Draw too much at once, and you'll trip the entire box. It's an inconvenience at best, but over time, it also becomes a fire-safety issue because breakers are only meant to trip a certain number of times before they lose their ability to trip as needed. The National Electrical Code has a formula to figure out when you're at risk of overloading your panel. Not all electricians pay attention to it, but they're supposed to, and your charger installer might tell you that you need to do something to meet the code. Not sure if you have enough electrical capacity to add an EV charger? An electrician will give you the best answer, but you can get an idea by adding up the numbers on all the double-wide breakers in your box. Here, my EV charger, induction range, dryer, and AC add up to 145 amps — good thing I have 200 amps to work with. Liam McCabe/NYT Wirecutter The traditional fix: Here, you'll upgrade your service connection to the grid. About two-thirds of the experts I've spoken with think this is usually the right path for homes with under 150 amps of service. Haas told me that most of his customers who need a workaround for an EV charger end up going this route, because it gives them freedom to add more high-draw appliances in the future. Service upgrades are never cheap. You'll need to hire an electrician to upgrade your entire panel, and then you need to pay the utility company to run the new connection. It'll likely cost at least a few thousand dollars. I paid $4,500 for this upgrade a few years ago, which is typical for my part of the country. But the costs can go much higher. If you'd need to excavate the service line, especially from under a public sidewalk, the cost can rise well into five figures, according to Shippee and other experts and homeowners I've heard from. 'It depends on your lovely utility,' Shippee said. Your entire neighborhood could also be running short on electrical service and may need broader service upgrades to the wiring and transformers. Stephanie Groll, from the City of Cambridge Department of Transportation in Massachusetts, said she's heard from multiple constituents who have run into this problem when they've tried to apply for a service upgrade. The modern workaround: The other option is a load controller. Broadly, this is a system that monitors your home's energy use and then selectively cuts the power to one or more circuits if you're about to overload the breaker. There are at least a dozen of these that I know of, and each one handles the problem a little differently. Several of them cost less than even a straightforward service upgrade; others save money only if you're facing a seriously pricey service upgrade but offer other advantages. The right choice for your home depends on how crowded your service already is, whether you're willing to have some items turned off at certain times, and how much future-proofing you want. I won't get into all of the nuances, but here are some leads to start to look into: EV chargers with load control: Wallbox, Tesla, and Emporia are popular brands that offer a load controller in their EV chargers, though you might also need to buy a separate power meter to make it work. Still, this is often the most cost-effective option. (The Emporia model we've linked here is more expensive than the model we recommend in our EV charger guide, which does not have a load-control feature. The Tesla model linked here is the same one that we recommend in the guide.) Wallbox, Tesla, and Emporia are popular brands that offer a load controller in their EV chargers, though you might also need to buy a separate power meter to make it work. Still, this is often the most cost-effective option. (The Emporia model we've linked here is more expensive than the model we recommend in our EV charger guide, which does not have a load-control feature. The Tesla model linked here is the same one that we recommend in the guide.) A standalone load-shedding device: I saw one made by Siemens at the International Builders' Show in 2025, though I've spoken to pros who have used similar products made by DCC and other brands. These work like a kill switch for a single circuit — in this case, your EV charger, but it could be anything. An electrician mounts the box next to your main panel, typically for around $1,000 all-in, according to experts I've talked to. I saw one made by Siemens at the International Builders' Show in 2025, though I've spoken to pros who have used similar products made by DCC and other brands. These work like a kill switch for a single circuit — in this case, your EV charger, but it could be anything. An electrician mounts the box next to your main panel, typically for around $1,000 all-in, according to experts I've talked to. Smart breakers: These circuit breakers can slot right into an existing electrical panel, and they're often smarter than standalone load-shedding boxes. Eaton makes one that's purpose-built for EV chargers. Savant has a modular system that can work with most existing panels and offers extra flexibility. These circuit breakers can slot right into an existing electrical panel, and they're often smarter than standalone load-shedding boxes. Eaton makes one that's purpose-built for EV chargers. Savant has a modular system that can work with most existing panels and offers extra flexibility. Smart panels: These are the most expensive kind of load-control systems, typically coming in at around a few thousand dollars after installation. But they offer a measure of elegance and futureproofing that's hard to get with other load controllers because you can control several circuits, not just the EV charger, through an app. A smart panel could be especially useful if you plan to add battery backup to your home, maybe through one of the bidirectional EV charging systems finally making their way into the real world. Lumin makes a sub-panel that lets you manage up to 12 circuits. Schneider Electric's Square D QO Smart Panel works with modules (sourced from Savant) for whichever circuits you'd like to control. On the Span Smart Panel, every circuit is smart by default. None of these are inexpensive, but they might beat the cost of a difficult service upgrade. A hacky alternative: Maybe you don't have the capacity to add a 50- or 60-amp circuit to your home for a typical Level 2 charger, but you could, for example, fit another 30 amps. A slower Level 2 charger is still quick enough to completely recharge almost any EV overnight, and this could be a good way to balance cost savings and charging speed.
New York Times
24-04-2025
- New York Times
Cleaning Gadgets You Probably Don't Need
In this edition of Clean Everything, we share our experience testing the world's most expensive robot vacuum cleaner. Plus: a viral scrubber you don't need, how to make your Swiffer less wasteful, and a robot vacuum we do like. Every so often on the cleaning beat, we come across an overengineered, overhyped gadget that claims it will solve all of your cleaning woes — even offering to take over your chores entirely. And though some robots can be extremely useful (more on that below), we've found when a cleaning gizmo seems like it's too good to be true, it probably is. Take, for example, this $1,400 robot vacuum. Its features list is a mile long: AI obstacle detection, a self-emptying dirt bin, a self-washing and self-drying mop, a tiny robot arm that reaches into corners to sweep up the last bits of dust, and on and on. And, sure, in our month of testing it, we've found that it's pretty good. Yet it's far from perfect, and it's still susceptible to the same limitations that robot cleaners have struggled with for decades. 'Counting on it to be a perfect robot servant, or to engineer the drudgery of cleaning out of your life, is just setting yourself up for disappointment,' said senior staff writer Liam McCabe.
